My grandfather’s obsession with his father was driven by love and a desire to find out why his family was torn apart when he was a child. But Lydia 2 never loved my grandfather, and the file in front of me reads like an impersonal list of facts.
I skim through the document, a part of me wondering why Lydia 2 would care so much about solving the mystery of a man she never even knew. But then I think of how distant her parents are, and must have always been. At the core, Lydia 2 and I are still the same person, with a driving desire to discover the truth. With a loving family, I channeled that energy into journalism. Without that, Lydia 2 became consumed with the mystery that might explain why her family was so fractured.
I vaguely note the dates my grandfather graduated high school, married my grandmother, and opened his hardware store. But an entry near the bottom of the page makes me stop. “Oh my God,” I breathe.
On July 5, 1989, my grandfather was committed to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. He would remain there until his disappearance.
Did he really go insane in this time line, finally pushed to the edge by his obsession with the Montauk Project? Or, like before, was everyone simply writing him off as crazy, unwilling to see the truth in his theories?
I scroll back up the page and read more carefully. Apparently my grandmother was fed up with his obsession over the Project and kicked him out in 1988. He moved into an apartment in New York City shortly after, forcing my father to drop out of college to run Bentley’s Hardware. Dad was also the one who committed Grandpa to Bellevue in 1989.
“Well, that explains why my dad is so different in this time line,” I mutter under my breath as I click through the file.
According to Lydia 2’s document, that final afternoon, a nurse went to check on Grandpa and he wasn’t in his room. They did a sweep of the hospital, but he had vanished. No one ever saw him again.
The staff at Bellevue assumed that he somehow snuck out of the hospital and later died on the streets of New York. But Lydia 2 didn’t believe it, convinced that the Montauk Project had something to do with his disappearance.
Was she right? Was the Project trying to silence my grandfather for some reason?
I finish reading and sit back, staring at the screen until it starts to get blurry. My grandfather, the man who helped raise me, ended up in a mental institution. And it’s my fault—if I hadn’t changed something in the past, none of this would have happened. This was exactly why I didn’t want to look into Lydia 2’s information on the Montauk Project; I was scared of what I might find.
I used to think it was always better to know the truth. But I didn’t know how frustrating it would feel when there’s nothing you can do to make things right again.
I squeeze my hands into fists. All I want to do is go to sleep and forget about what I just learned. But the man’s words from earlier come back to me: “The Montauk Conspiracy message boards.” Lydia 2 wasn’t just investigating Grandpa; she was also involved with this Resister person. But does he really know how to find a recruit, or is he secretly working for the Project? Are they monitoring me, even now?
I hesitate for a minute, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. Outside it is getting darker, but I haven’t turned on any lamps and the computer is the only bright spot in the room. It puts out an artificial glow that reminds me of the fluorescent lights down in the Facility at Camp Hero. I shiver as I remember running through those white corridors, desperately searching for a way out.
If the Project suspected me, they wouldn’t be sending some conspiracy theorist into my father’s shop to question me. I would already be dead.
Which means the Resister was telling the truth. I don’t know if he’s really onto something, but if I can find the message board he was talking about then I might be able to figure out what he meant by “the rebellion.”
I close the file on Grandpa and open Safari. Lydia 2 has several saved bookmarks, and I find one called “MP Boards.” A white log-in screen pops up. I type in Lydia’s handle: Montauk17. But I pause when it asks for a password.
I try Reptoids. Nothing. Tesla. Grant. LydiaBentley. None of it works. Finally I type in my grandfather’s name: PeterBentley. The screen disappears, and is replaced by a standard forum template with a black background and bright green lettering. I skim through some of the message-board subject headings. One is labeled Tesla Still Alive! Another reads Visiting Camp Hero.
A small box pops up on the screen in front of me. Tgirl123 is inviting you to a private chat. I click on the link provided, and a new page loads.
Tgirl123: Heyya. Where the hell you been?
I slowly type out a response.
Montauk17: Sorry. Been busy. Anything new?
Tgirl123: Resister’s all over the private chats. He’s close.
Montauk17: To what?
Tgirl123: Are you kidding? The rebellion!
I sit up straighter. How is this safe to talk about here? With nothing to lose, I ask her.
Tgirl123: Girl, please. You know Resister is all over that shit. He’s hidden this board from everyone! Not even the MP could find it.
So not only is the Resister organizing against the Project, but he knows enough about computers to hide an entire internet community from their eyes?
Montauk17: What’s the next step?
Tgirl123: Says there’s a recruit he’s close to cracking. He’s getting a spy in the Project. Once we know how they work we can start the takedown.
Montauk17: How do we do that?
Tgirl123: It’s all in the time machine! We’re making our own!
These conspiracy theorists must be trying to get to a recruit in order to access Dr. Faust’s prototype for the time machine. Or Tesla’s machine, as Wes called it—the TM.
But how do they know about the recruits? I never even knew that information, not until Wes told me about how they kidnapped him.
Before I can ask, the words Gotta go. Later. appear on the screen.
Tgirl123 signs out, and I’m in this private chat room by myself. I close it and search through a few of the main forums, but no one is talking about anything I haven’t heard before. There’s nothing on the rebellion, and I wonder if maybe this is a private idea, shared only among a few select people.
I read through back entries until my eyes hurt, but there’s nothing to connect my grandfather to the Montauk Project. And no Resister in sight.
Why does it seem like no matter what I do, I only create more questions, more mysteries?
Frustrated, I slam the laptop shut and shove it across the cluttered desk. It skids a few inches on the piles of paper and crashes into Wes’s leaf. I reach out, but it’s too late: the dried leaf is crushed into small pieces.
I stand up so quickly my desk chair falls to the floor.
This is so pointless. I don’t even know that the leaf was from Wes. Anyone could have left those things on the windowsill. It was probably Grant, trying to be romantic. Or a squirrel.
I spin around and fall face-first onto my bed.
Anything could have happened to Wes since I last saw him in the time-machine room, blood leaking out of his shoulder. His life is always in danger, with the constant fear that if he doesn’t die from the effects of the time machine, he’ll die on a mission he’s forced to go on. The odds he’d reach out to me, with the Project watching his every move, are slim. Would he take that risk just to leave me some trinkets? Or am I so desperate for some sign of him that I’ve been convincing myself he’s thinking of me at all?
Is he even still alive?
Please let him still be alive.
If only I could see him one more time, I might not feel so alone.
I reach under my pillow and pull out a neatly folded piece of paper. I carefully smooth it out and stare down at a photocopy of an old wedding announcement.
Jacob and Harriet Bentley have the pleasure of announcing the marriage of their daughter, Mary Bentley, a local nurse, to former army sergeant Lucas Clarke. The two were wed this past
Saturday, June 5, 1945, at the home of Dr. Bentley and his wife. They will retire to Mr. Clarke’s family farm in White Plains, Georgia, to start their life together.
I rub my finger over the small black-and-white photo of Mary and Lucas that accompanies the article. She is in a simple white dress, her hair in curls, and she’s beaming up at Lucas. He has his arm around her and is looking straight at the camera. Even in the faded ink I can see his crooked bottom teeth as he smiles.
As soon as I got back to 2012, I went to the local library and looked up information on the Bentleys. Aside from old case files of Dr. Bentley, this was the only thing I could find.
This picture was taken almost seventy years in the past, and yet it feels like yesterday I was at the USO dance, watching Mary and Lucas spin across a crowded floor. I was worried that I had screwed up their destinies too, by going back into the past. But even though Dean went missing, they still ended up together, and they look happy.
I clutch the paper in my hands. How can I feel so homesick when I’m technically home? Mary and Lucas are gone. I might still have Hannah, but I don’t have my family. I don’t have Wes. And my grandfather disappeared because I inadvertently changed his destiny.
There is no time or place that I belong to, not anymore.
I can’t stop them; the tears come, burning my eyes and soaking the pillow beneath me. I try to keep quiet at first, but then I remember that these parents probably wouldn’t care either way.
I’ve lost everything.
Sometime in the night, I jerk awake. I’m lying on my back, still in my jean shorts and loose T-shirt. My face feels puffy and raw, and the tears have dried into salty tracks that run down my cheeks.
My heart is pounding, though I’m not sure why. I reach up, my hand closing around the cool metal of Wes’s pocket watch. I was dreaming. About being with Wes, and the woods in fall, red and orange leaves drifting all around us.
I feel strange, like something has changed without my knowledge. I sit up quickly. The moon is spilling silver light onto the edge of my bed. I glance around the room and gasp as one of the shadows near the window breaks away from the wall. I try to scream, but I’m frozen as it moves and reforms.
It is coming closer, and I clench my fingers in the bedspread. A dark shape looms over me.
It is a person, I realize. A boy. And then the light from the moon slides across his face.
Wes.
CHAPTER 3
It’s you,” I whisper.
“Lydia.” His voice is hoarse. The sound of it breaks through the spell holding me still, and I rise onto my knees to face him.
“God, Wes. Where have you been? Are you okay? How’s your shoulder? Have you been leaving those things on my windowsill?” The words spill out of me, an endless flood I can’t stop.
“So many questions.” He smiles a little, so that just the corners of his mouth tilt up. “You haven’t changed.”
The comment makes something open inside of me, something I hadn’t realized was locked up tight. “I guess not.”
He doesn’t answer but steps closer. He moves with the same careful deliberateness I remember. He’s so familiar that it makes my chest hurt. I’ve been waiting to see his face for weeks, imagining his arms folded around me. But now that he’s here, I’m not sure how to act. The last thing he did was send me away from him, telling me we couldn’t be together.
As he gets closer, I see the weary look in his eyes. Something is wrong.
“What is it? Are you hurt?” I put my arm out but stop before I make contact, not sure if he’ll welcome it.
“No.” He lets the word hang there and steps closer. He’s dressed in the black, slick-looking uniform that all the recruits wear.
My hand is still outstretched and Wes takes another step and suddenly I’m touching him. I close my eyes as my fingertips graze his rib cage.
“You kept it.”
I look up. He’s staring down at the watch that’s resting against my chest.
“Of course I did.”
He leans in further and my hand flattens against his stomach. This time he’s the one who closes his eyes.
The moon is bright enough for me to see his face clearly. His nose has a slight bump at the bridge where I know he’s broken it. His cheekbones are sharp, his jaw even more pronounced. I wonder if he’s lost weight since I saw him last.
His eyelids slowly open and his black eyes lock onto mine. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t go.” I try to grip the fabric of his shirt, but it slips out of my hand. I pull back, staring at the dark liquid covering my palm.
“Are you bleeding?”
“It’s not mine.”
I reach for him with both hands, but he lightly takes hold of my wrists.
“The last time I saw you, you were covered in blood. It was falling onto the floor.” My voice cracks on the words.
“It’s not mine. I’m fine. It’s . . .” He looks away.
“Your arm. What happened?”
He keeps his grip on my wrists, connecting us even as he holds me apart from him.
“It was nothing. A flesh wound. It healed in a few days.” He shrugs, and I relax a little at the easy way he moves his shoulder. “The TM screwed up; the machines in 1944 are too unpredictable. I got back a day before you were scheduled to come through, and I fixed myself up before anyone could notice. They never even knew I followed you through time.”
“Wes.” I shift closer to him until our hands are trapped between us. “Why are you here? No, wait,” I say quickly. “I don’t care what the reason is. I’m just happy to see you.”
He drops my wrists and reaches up to cup my face. His hands are warm on my cheeks. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” His voice is soft, a whisper.
“Me neither.” I lift my hands and place them over his. The pose reminds me of the first time we kissed, pressed against a tree in 1944. “The shell. The flower. The leaf. Did you leave them for me?”
He leans forward until our foreheads touch. I can smell him now, and I take in breath like I’m trying not to drown.
I feel him nod against me. “It was stupid, I know. . . .”
I smile at the thought of him sneaking into my room at night while I slept. He didn’t forget me. He didn’t leave me here alone.
“It wasn’t stupid,” I say. “I needed to know you were here in some way.”
“I was. I am.” The second he says the words, his arms stiffen and he lifts his head. “No, no, I shouldn’t have said that. Lydia, I came here to tell you something. You have to forget me. You have to forget about all of it.” He steps back, away from me.
“Wes.” I put my arms out again, but he turns toward the window. “I don’t understand. You’ve been leaving me those . . . gifts, and then you appear in my bedroom in the middle of the night to tell me that we can’t be together? It doesn’t make sense.”
He bends his head and I watch as he runs his fingers through his black hair. It has grown longer since I last saw him; it curls around the back of his neck now. “I know. I know.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing.” He turns quickly to face me. “Lydia, just promise me that you’ll forget about the Montauk Project. And about me.”
I stare at him for a moment. His eyes are dark, unwavering, and I know he’s serious. He thinks I can just forget about him?
“No.” I shake my head. “I’ve tried to be this new Lydia. But I can’t, Wes. It’s not working. I can’t forget myself, and I certainly can’t forget you.”
“You have to.” He steps forward and his hands close around my upper arms.
“Why are you saying this?”
“Lydia.” He squeezes me so hard I wince. At my expression, he lets go immediately. “They know,” he says quietly.
“Who knows?”
“The Project. They know the time line is different. They had been monitoring this election in the past, and it changed. Now they’re investigati
ng the rift.”
My fingers twist in the soft material of my T-shirt. All of a sudden I can’t get enough air. “Do they know about me? Are they coming here?”
“Not yet.” His voice, his face are blank. “One of the recruits who was in nineteen eighty-nine reported that a change happened in New York City.” At my questioning look he explains, “A city council election has a different outcome. One that isn’t . . . favorable for the Project. The information traveled to two thousand twelve. I’ve been ordered to investigate what it means. They’re sending me to the past tomorrow.”
An election changed. Was it because of something that I did in 1944? “Can they connect that to me?” I ask. “To us?”
“Not yet.”
“It might have nothing to do with us. Recruits are all over history, changing the past. Maybe this recruit just screwed up.” But the date—1989—is the same year my grandfather disappeared. Could it be connected?
Before I can tell Wes this, I hear him say, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep them away from you no matter what.” I glance up. He’s standing over me, his hands tight at his sides. “You’ll be safe. But you have to protect yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
Wes’s eyes dart toward my cluttered desk. “You can’t have any more connection with the Montauk Project. Burn everything and forget about it. Live your life here.”
I press my lips together, afraid that I’m about to cry. “I’m trying, Wes, but I don’t think I can do it. My grandfather is gone. My parents . . . everything is different. I miss you.”
We stare at each other silently. Wes is the first one to look away. “Lydia,” he whispers. “I watched a girl kill herself today.” I make a small noise, but he keeps going. “One of the recruits took her gun and . . . right in front of me. Close enough that her blood soaked through my shirt. It’s on my skin.” He pauses. “She was the one who told them about the rift in time. They were investigating her, she . . .”
This Strange and Familiar Place Page 3
